Dutch · Pronunciation Guide

How do you pronounce "de school" in Dutch?

Q: How do you pronounce de school in Dutch?

de school is pronounced with the stress described below. In IPA it is written /də ˈsxoːl/. It means “school.” duh s-KHOHL — sch is a hissing s plus the harsh fricative, never English "sh" or "sk."

duh s-KHOHL — sch is a hissing s plus the harsh fricative, never English "sh" or "sk."

de school /də ˈsxoːl/

One beat, slow to reach because two fricatives precede the vowel. The plural "scholen" adds a schwa syllable and drops an o from the spelling, but the opening cluster is unchanged and still needs the same care.

Listen: de school

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Sound it out

sch Two sounds in sequence: a clean s, then the velar scrape. English "school" turns this into a plain "sk," which is exactly the substitution Dutch does not allow.

oo Long and pure, held at one tongue position. English glides toward "oo" at the end of this vowel; Dutch parks the tongue and leaves it.

l A bright final l with the tongue tip forward, not the hollow dark l that ends the English word.

Hear it in a sentence

Ik ga met de fiets naar school.

I go to school by bike.

Listen: Ik ga met de fiets naar school.

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"Ik ga met de fiets naar school" drops the article before "school," which Dutch does for institutions you attend — exactly parallel to English "go to school." Note "met de fiets" is the fixed way to say "by bike."

Where English speakers slip

Because the English cognate is spelled identically, learners say "skool" without a second thought. Dutch splits sch into two sounds: hiss, then scrape. Others import English "sh" and get "shool." Both miss. Practise it beside "schoon" and "schrijven" to build the cluster properly.